The chairman of the group which selected the winning bid for the State's second mobile phone licence, Mr Martin Brennan, told the Moriarty tribunal yesterday that he believed the best application was selected. Mr Brennan, an assistant secretary who was a principal officer in the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications in 1995, chaired the project group which selected Esat Digifone. He was also responsible for designing the process used to select the winner.
He told Mr Jerry Healy SC, for the tribunal, that his department wanted to introduce competition to the mobile phone market and to get a good deal for the consumer but the Department of Finance wanted a "big cheque" by charging the highest fee bid for the licence.
Mr Brennan said that at a meeting on March 6th, 1995, the group agreed a protocol on meetings with representatives of bidding consortiums. The protocol included the rule that at least two representatives of the group would be present at any meeting, that a brief record would be written as to who was at the meeting and the discussion which took place, and that meetings would be in the office and not in social circumstances. He said that to his knowledge no one outside the group was told the weightings to be used for assessing the various aspects of the bids. "We had a lock and key approach to the applications."
He disputed a statement from another civil servant, Mr Sean Fitzpatrick, that he had told him the weightings. He never took a copy of the weightings document from the room, he said.
He said the then minister, Mr Michael Lowry, had no involvement in resolving a dispute with the European Commission over the fee to be charged for the licence.
Mr Brennan said Mr Lowry was "furious" about the fact the competition was delayed while the issue was to be resolved.
"Most politicians don't like unfavourable coverage in the media, particularly in the Sunday newspapers, and this was on a Thursday."
He said the group was told the winning application was 50 per cent owned by Communicorp and 50 per cent owned by Telenor and the department had been informed of the intention to place 20 per cent with investors if the licence was awarded to Digifone.
